You can upgrade the quality of the item (white>Green>Blue>Purple>Gold) which effectively makes it the equivalent of the next level up. (With set items, the effects average out based on all items, though.)

But there is not way to make a VR1 gear become a VR3 gear.

VR sets are good from 3-6 levels, but I wouldn't go beyond that.

When you update, you'll get slightly better AC/SR, better set bonuses (again, slight), and the ability to increase the enchant level to the next tier.

Unless you intend to bank things and hand-me-down to alts, once you cease using a piece of gear, research it for the trait or decon it for the upgrade mats.

You'll weep a little when you do it the first few times, but it gets easier, and your bank spaces will thank you for it.

And Yes, crafting is worthwhile. It can make you $, plus I'd say it's split right about 50/50 between crafted and found set gear being the best in the game.

I find myself using armor for 8 to 10 levels Pre-VR. Once in VR, I go 2 or 3 ranks for each set of gear.

And, yes Crafting is worth it, but not so much until upper levels. Problem is, it takes so long to become proficient, that you need to start deconning and researching as soon as you can even if your not investing points into the craft lines (other than the research passives for now)

Crafting is definitely worth it. But do not try to "improve" your crafted gear up to legendary while leveling. If you are below level 50, most people won't need anything higher than blue crafted gear (and you can get by just fine with green). The blue and green improvement materials are really pretty easy to come by (and you don't need a lot of them for a 100% chance at successfully upgrading your gear). Save your purples and golds for high veteran ranks where they matter more

I wouldn't worry about any of the level 1-50 gear to be perfectly frank since your character will level up so quickly. Once you hit veteran ranks your gear will be used for a much longer span of time and is worth improving crafted gear or indeed some that drops in the gold and silver cadwell quest line zones.

Many have asked for the ability to level a piece of gear beyond just improving its stats but I don't know that will ever be a thing. With all that said, have a crafter maxed is absolutely worth it. The gear you craft will be better and best tuned for your build than any random drop (don't forget crafters get set bonus gear while the only place they drop is end game and pvp)

Set bonuses are useful from the beginning of the game to the end, particularly if you enjoy punching above your level. So it is worth the massive time investment to level the crafter and get all of the armor and weapon traits researched. Additionally as long as you've put points into it, you can craft items above your level and make some gold crafting weapons and armors for other players.

Also, put points into improving your deconstruction rate percentage as soon as possible, since almost all the gear you're given as quest rewards is green you have a good chance from breaking your junk down and getting the improvement mats out of it. This should get you plenty of green level mats to improve your leveling gear up to and as you begin to get blue and sometimes purple level gear you can break that down as you get them while leveling. This way when you hit veteran rank and want to make your armor blue or purple (purple is a little expensive and only suggested if you have a good source of the improvement mats) you should already have plenty stockpiled. crafting materials now stack to 200 per type so you could have quite a bit of useful material stocked up for when you need it later.

The other crafting options are just as important, with alchemy you can create your own potions and eventually get four for every one set of materials used, same goes for provisioning ( you will want food for end game) and enchanting can save you some serious gold when it comes time to create your high end enchantments (so long as you've been dutifully harvesting)

so the tl;dr is No you can't level gear, just improve it. Yes crafting is absolutely worthwhile.

I'm starting to feel like pre VR1 it's a waste to put points into crafting.